Interference & compass recalibration

[Moon]

I am new to drone flying and really enjoying flying the MA. It has been great to get some aerial footage & photos and to see the world from a different view point.

It has been an eye opener at just how much environmental factors can interfere with the drone which other newbies might also need to consider when planning on where to fly. I know that if I fly in my back garden I get interference from the Wi-Fi but not enough to be an issue.

So far I have typically been flying at local parks, mid week so hardly anyone around and following the distances in the drone code.

At one park I notice that the compass on the MA has to be recalibrated every time I go there and this procedure doesn't happen anywhere else. I think that although I am a good 120m away from a road or house I am in the middle of the park where there are metal rugby posts about 20m away from my take off point which must be enough to throw out the compass? The drone flies OK once it has been recalibrated and no issues with interference once flying or landing, even when going in close proximity to the posts.

Yesterday I took my MA to another local park and stood in the middle of the football fields. When the drone went up to about 2m high the "strong aircraft interference" error popped up. If I took it higher (6-7m) then the video feed dropped out and it lost connection. After resetting the MA and the controller I tried it again and same happened. I was able to fly it under 2m high with no issues but anything above that and the video feed would drop before aircraft disconnection. I wondered what was causing the interference and noticed that there were two large mobile phone masts in the trees about 80m away. I had no idea that the masts would create such disturbance. No wonder people don't want them building near homes!

Has anyone else noticed any other environmental features that cause problems with their MA?

 

[MavicMo]

I've mentioned this in other threads, but of all my DJI drones (see my signature), the Mavic Air is the most sensitive to outside interference of all my DJI drones. I can fly my MA and get interference warnings, laggy video feed, and need to do a CC, then minutes later fly my Spark and its fine... If I go to open areas, its definitely better.

I don't know what it is about the MA but it is definitely more "sensitive".

I am new to drone flying and really enjoying flying the MA. It has been great to get some aerial footage & photos and to see the world from a different view point.

It has been an eye opener at just how much environmental factors can interfere with the drone which other newbies might also need to consider when planning on where to fly. I know that if I fly in my back garden I get interference from the Wi-Fi but not enough to be an issue.

So far I have typically been flying at local parks, mid week so hardly anyone around and following the distances in the drone code.

At one park I notice that the compass on the MA has to be recalibrated every time I go there and this procedure doesn't happen anywhere else. I think that although I am a good 120m away from a road or house I am in the middle of the park where there are metal rugby posts about 20m away from my take off point which must be enough to throw out the compass? The drone flies OK once it has been recalibrated and no issues with interference once flying or landing, even when going in close proximity to the posts.

Yesterday I took my MA to another local park and stood in the middle of the football fields. When the drone went up to about 2m high the "strong aircraft interference" error popped up. If I took it higher (6-7m) then the video feed dropped out and it lost connection. After resetting the MA and the controller I tried it again and same happened. I was able to fly it under 2m high with no issues but anything above that and the video feed would drop before aircraft disconnection. I wondered what was causing the interference and noticed that there were two large mobile phone masts in the trees about 80m away. I had no idea that the masts would create such disturbance. No wonder people don't want them building near homes!

Has anyone else noticed any other environmental features that cause problems with their MA?

 

[Travisimo]

I have a Phantom 3 Standard and a Mavic Air and they both use Wifi. DJI have definitely improved the Wifi with the Mavic Air, but there are some places where it gets about the same range as my P3S and other places where it greatly exceeds it. There are so many variables that you just have to be aware of your surroundings and safeguards that are in place when you lose connection. I fly mostly in line of sight, so I haven't had too many problems with my Air, but the FPV definitely experiences some lag and cutouts once in a while.

 

[Evo1668]

The MA does certainly appear to be more sensitive to magnetic interference than other DJI drones, certainly more sensitive than my previous Mavic Pro. I had a couple of requests to perform compass calibration, and occasionally have seen interference warnings (briefly) when flying sometimes. But given the number of flyaways that seem to be getting reported (in other threads).

The one thing reading all of this has drilled into me, is every time checking the orientation and location on the map before takeoff as a vital pre-flight check. I've always done this before, but it has been glancing at the map to make sure. With the air I doubly make sure the map is correct and the orientation corresponds correctly with the take off direction.